The Parish Crucifix. What would you do?

[Aramis]

If I recall correctly, the UK has a religious tolerance act. If the local police won’t look into it, you might seek out the national police agencies and inquire as to why the locals don’t enforce the laws of the UK.

Also, go to the press.

And, for goodness sake, put a 24 hour tape-loop videocam on the next one and the nave.

 

[chicago]

Shouldn’t the diocese be involved in supporting you and taking legal action when it comes to something this serious?

 

[DL82]

You could start a rumour that the Church is protected by a gnarled old guardian monk with eerie powers :hypno:

 

[love4mary]

Our parish has a beautiful statue of Rachel. One day she was smashed. Then our sign was destroyed. Finally the parish council got the funds together and installed surveillance camera’s on all parts of the parish.

The cost was high in money terms, but the added security it affords is Priceless. Now, women who wish to go to the church and pray while alone feel safer knowing there are security camera’s and the building is safer from thugs. Not many Vandals want to be caught on camara for all the world to see.

 

[magdalisa]

PRAY, PRAY, PRAY! Pray for those that persecute you and trust God to protect you.

I will pray for you also.

 

[Crumpy]

I didn’t read every post, so I may be repeating something. I’d suggest you have a fund raiser, very public, and extend forgiveness to whoever has broken the cross in the past.

Just keep whooping it up, as we might say here, to get attention.

Catholics have been persecuted in Great Britian for a long time. These acts of vandelism may be an expression of deep lingering hatred.

You might consider the alternative of putting up cheap representations of the crucifix which could be replaced easily enough if they were vandelized.

 

[Loy]

I think the suspect is likely mentally ill (or addicted to drugs) and acting on his own. Install video surveillance, and replace the vandalized corpus with an inexpensive substitute until the culprit is apprehended.

 

[BAIRBRE]

In our parish, we have [or had] a beautiful large crucifix with a man size figure which stood in our parish private grounds. It stood there for over 25-years unmolested, then about a year ago, it was found that the figure had been smashed to pieces.

The blame was laid at the door of local thugs.The wooden cross stood on its own until it was decided a few months ago to have another figure made and re-fitted. This cost us £300. [about $500]. Last week the figure was smashed again. A note was nailed to the cross that ‘this was an act of good conquering evil’!

An attempt was made to burn down our church. Pews [they are very heavy] were found stacked on top of each other from floor to ceiling [about 30-foot high] and paper etc had been lit underneath the bottom one. By the grace of God, the primer went out before setting fire to the bottom pew, it was miraculously only scorched. We have no idea who the likely culprits are

Our church is a very beautiful building that took over 50-years to be paid for. Though it is only 70-years old, it is a listed building.

Our town is a relatively quiet location, we do not have the serious crime that other areas suffer, nor so far as I am aware any racial/religious hatred. There has been a mosque open in a private house a few doors away. They have been there for the past two years only. But they are not suspected as they are very quiet. Is there anything significant that happens in Islam mid April every year? I am not accusing them, just asking.

We have a very good working relationship with Mainstream Protestant Churches. Our Hall is used for a range of local community [non-Catholic] activities.

There is an SDA and JW movements but they are relatively quiet so I do not suspect them. It is strange the damage occured at the SAME time two years on the trot in mid April.

This is the $64,000 question. Who do you think it might be?

Do you think we should replace the figure?

Traditionalists among us think we should. We are not a wealthy parish. What do you think?

What other ‘Catholic’ witness could we have in place of the Crucifix? Ideas most gratefully welcomed

I would replace it with the Crucifix. You do need to contact the police …In America, it would be considered a hate crime. In the past in Southern New Jersey, USA we had the KKK burn crosses and burn churches down. Now there is talks of maybe closing these churches down forever by our diocese…
YOU NEED TO REPLACE THE CRUCIFIX…

“Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God- the rest will be given.”
-Mother Teresa, Calcutta, India:yup: :yup:

Maybe set up website with pictures of your parish…do fundraisers. What country are you from?

 

[jmcrae]

This might seem counter-intuitive, since the natural reaction would be to double-bolt all the doors and windows, and don’t let anybody in after dark - but what about setting up 24 hour Adoration?

One advantage would be that people would be praying there 24 hours a day - meaning that there would be no “safe” time of day (safe for the criminals, I mean) when there wouldn’t be people wandering around the Church yard either before or after their hour of prayer, there would always be cars in the parking lot, and people would be coming and going in an unpredictable pattern.

(This needs a fairly large population of devout Catholics to make it work, but if you got people in from other parishes to cover some of the hours, you might be able to do it.)

You could set it up for the purpose of praying for the poor souls of the vandals who tried to set fire to your Church, and wrecked your Crucifix.

 

[HollyDolly]

Installing security cameras on the outside and the inside of the church would help maybe catch these people.
I would ask the pastors of the protestant churches to meet at your parish .Maybe the priest and parish council could tell them what’s going on and ask if they have had anyone break into their churches as well.These people may not stop with the Catholic church but do others as well.Have heard of various churches in the US here being burnt,etc.And not just Catholic,even Protestant ones too. Get the word out,off some kind of reward,etc,put it on the local news.These guys have to be stopped before they do something worse.You might also contact other parishes in the diocese to see if they too have had such problems.